How To Think Like a CEO
22 Vital Traits You Need to be the Person at the Top
by Debra Benton
• Be secure in yourself: No one makes you feel inferior without your consent.
• Be in control of your attitude: Success in business is based more on mental attitude than mental capabilities• Be tenacious: Nothing ever happens with one letter, one telephone call, one request.
• Be continuously improving: Take risks. Mistakes provide some of your best learning.
• Be honest and ethical: If you are careless with the truth, your credibility will be jeopardized when you are telling the truth.
• Be sure to think before you talk: Think fast, pause, then speak purposefully.
• Be original: Carefully observe what more people are doing in any situation, and don’t do that.
• Be publicly modest: It’s more of a thrill to have others recognize your ability rather than your pointing it out first. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.”
• Be aware of your style: Style does not pertain to clothes. It’s about what you do in your clothes.
• Be gutsy: List the things that scare you the most – then make it your to-do list.
• Be humorous: It takes guts to inject levity into serious business situations – but somebody has to do it, and it better be you.
• Be a tad theatrical: Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Leadership is about performance and performing.
• Be detail-oriented: The small things will always make the biggest difference.
• Be willing to lead: Be worth listening to, worth believing, worth following.
• Be sure to fight for your people: Be loyal downward; spread credit downward.
• Be willing to admit mistakes: If you are error-free, you’re likely effort-free.
• Be straightforward: Everything you say or write can be done in a plain, simple manner. Just do it.
• Be nice: The more power and prestige you hold, the less it may seem you need to be nice. Wrong.
• Be inquisitive: Ask, ask, ask, and then ask more.
• Be competitive: Don’t pray for an easy win in situations you are involved in. You don’t learn much from success, especially easy success. You learn from struggle.
• Be flexible: Be able to stand out from the crowd while still fitting in with the crowd.
• Be a good storyteller: People understand you better, remember what you say longer, find you smarter and more interesting if you use anecdotes to make your points.